When planning the Assembly Hall of the new Chiyoda Ward Offices, the main objective was to create a flexible space. The Assembly Hall in the previous building was used solely for council meetings and was therefore severely under-utilized so the designers aimed to produce a new style of Assembly Hall. The furniture in the new Assembly Hall was to be movable. This could be easily achieved for the chairs, simply by adding castors, but the real problem was how to move the heavy desks. This problem was overcome by fitting the desks with retractable castors that could be lowered into place when necessary, facilitating the movement of even the five-person desks. All the desks and chairs fit in the space under the public gallery for storage, so simply by moving away the desks and replacing them with stackable chairs that are kept in storage when the council is in session, the space can be transformed into a mini hall. This allows it to be used for lectures or mini concerts or, if all the chairs are left in storage, for a dance studio, thereby achieving great flexibility. This space has received a lot of attention and it is expected that similar designs will be utilized by other local authorities around the country.
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